Linux Mint on my MacBook not the success I hoped it to be

 · Systeemkabouter

After some troubles with my OS X install on my Retina Macbook, I thought it would be a good time to revisit Linux on the Desktop. Although I have desktop Linuxes running all the time, the last time I ran Linux as a desktop native on hardware was years ago.

So I burned the iso of Linux Mint 17 and after some backups and other safeguard measures I booted the DVD and wiped clean my Macbook. The install was rather eventless and some time later I was booting an encrypted install of Mint.

I’ve had it running for about two days and tried to do as much of my regelar tasks on te machine. Although a lot does work rather nice, I do have a list of things that combined made me decide to stop the trial.

  • Bluetooth setup of my Logitech mouse wouldn’t work
  • Nvidia drivers work stable, but switch to the native resolution on my retina display leaving me with very tiny UI elements. Could not find any obvious / permanent scaling solution, other than running a commandline script every time my screen setup changes (external monitor etc)
  • No real solution for typing and touching the touchpad while doing that. There was some clunky way to disable the touchpad on keypress for a second or two, but that disturbed my workflow too much. I don’t know how the other systems handle it, but it seems to work more seemless
  • Built in webcam totally unsupported.

After this adventure, I set up a clean install of OS X Yosemite, only restoring my documents and reinstalling all applications clean. Lets hope the original problem with my Macbook had something to do with the 9+ years of history I’ve been migrating from Macbook to Macbook.